WO-FI – revolutionary wood 3D printing filament

Two young engineers from Slovenia – Jure Hictaler and Rok Rudolf – are using a crowd-funding approach to further promote and develop a 3D printing filament which, they indicate on Indiegogo should have a high percentage of wood in it and would consist of only one wood type.

They write: “nowadays, 3D printing is already knocking on your own front doors, it has become affordable to almost anybody. The eye to hand coordination is no longer needed, you don’t have to excel in sculpture or in carpentry. You only need to know how to get your idea from your head on to a computer, and 3D printing capabilities to extract it from your computer into reality. “

“But (this may sound old to you) there is a catch. The filaments for the 3D printers are very expensive, the special hybrid ones in particular, but NOT WO-FI. It will be affordable for everyone.”

WO-FI (as they like to call it), stands for wood filament and they say is a new type of filament for 3D printing. “It has the highest percentage of wood content on the world market, it is made entirely of one wood type (example: pine, spruce, beech) It is biodegradable, recyclable and above all, environmental friendly!” they claim.

In depth analysis

Their stated goal was to create a filament for 3D printing with high percentage of wood content. “As you know, the highest available wood filaments have reached 38 % of wood content. But our formula is better – we have reached a 50% wood content! The other half consists of a mixture of biopolymers.”

They established a testing protocol which every wood type has to pass in order to be even considered for a later test extrusion.

“We tested the temperature responsiveness of wood types themselves, the interaction of wood, the lignin inside the wood, and the added bio adhesives, all according to different temperature changes. Than we tested the wood type’s interaction with PLA and other bio polymers as a function of temperature, and the material’s durability was tested before and after each test.”

A team of materials scientists at NYU Tandon School of Engineering has developed the first process to 3D print components of syntactic foam — extremely strong and lightweight composites used in vehicles, airplanes, and ships.

NVBOTS, the provider of automated, enterprise 3D printing solutions disrupting business and education, has been recently honoured in Fast Company’s annual ranking of the world’s Most Innovative Companies for 2016.